Written Answers Friday 28 March 2008

Scottish Executive

Crime

Derek Brownlee (South of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many attacks on police officers were recorded in the South of Scotland region in the last two years for which the information is available, broken down by force.

Kenny MacAskill: The police recorded crime statistics collected centrally are based on an aggregate return at local authority level, and do not distinguish the circumstances of the crime, such as the occupation of the victim. This information should be available from the individual forces.

Crime

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases of fraud were referred to the Procurator Fiscal by police forces in each year since 1999, broken down by constabulary.

Right Hon Elish Angiolini QC: The numbers of charges of fraud reported to Procurators Fiscal by police forces in each financial year since 2002-03 are shown in the following table. A further 2,161 such charges were reported to Procurators Fiscal by Specialist Reporting Agencies.

  Charges: Fraud etc

  

 Police Force
 2002-03
 2003-04
 2004-05
 2005-06
 2006-07
 Total


 Central Scotland Police
 931
 866
 981
 909
 633
 4,320


 Dumfries and Galloway Police
 442
 343
 540
 97
 122
 1,544


 Fife Constabulary
 802
 901
 819
 702
 571
 3,795


 Grampian Police
 919
 660
 709
 554
 354
 3,196


 Lothian and Borders
 2,800
 2,010
 3,069
 2,096
 1,300
 11,275


 Northern Constabulary
 853
 487
 697
 645
 341
 3,023


 Strathclyde Police
 3,546
 3,319
 2,733
 2,573
 2,040
 14,211


 Tayside Police
 879
 845
 1,175
 845
 739
 4,483


 British Transport Police
 176
 215
 51
 49
 23
 514


 Ministry of Defence Police
 26
 69
 53
 16
 88
 252


 Total
 11,374
 9,715
 10,827
 8,486
 6,211
 46,613



  Notes:

  1. The information in the table has been extracted from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service’s case management database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to procurators fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. If a Procurator Fiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency, the database will record details only of the amended charge.

  2. The database is charge-based. The figures quoted therefore relate to the number of charges rather than the number of individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges.

  3. The information in the table is restricted to charges involving fraud, attempted fraud, fraud (board and lodging), fraud (credit/debit card), fraud (electronic means), fraud (taxi fare/vehicle/vessel etc fare) and fraudulent schemes.

  4. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service completed an upgrade of its electronic case management system in April 2002. Only case records created after that date contain complete data which is capable of electronic analysis.

  5. The table reflects the position at 20 March 2008.

Enterprise

Derek Brownlee (South of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many unincorporated businesses there are in Scotland, broken down by local authority area.

Jim Mather: The information requested is not held centrally by government.

Information Technology

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what representations ministers will make to the relevant authorities to introduce the "sco" abbreviation as standard for official email addresses for all Scottish public bodies in place of "gov.uk" or "scottish.parliament.uk".

John Swinney: We are giving careful consideration to the issues that would be raised by the introduction of the "sco" abbreviation so that, should the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) call for proposals for new generic Top Level Domain names, the Scottish Government will be able to make an informed decision about whether to support an "sco" abbreviation.

NHS Complaints

Jackson Carlaw (West of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many complaints have been registered against the NHS each year since 1997, also broken down by NHS board.

Nicola Sturgeon: Statistical information on complaints made under the NHS Complaints Procedure, broken down by NHS board and by financial year, is published annually and can be found at:

  http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/4362.html.

National Health Service

Jackson Carlaw (West of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to measure satisfaction rates of NHS users.

Nicola Sturgeon: Work is routinely undertaken in NHS boards across Scotland to survey patients’ experience of local care and to implement learning from the NHS Complaints Procedure and other local feedback arrangements.

  However, Better Together, our new national Patient Experience Programme will tap into patient experience in a more systematic way. It will:

  work with patients and carers to determine what they want from the NHS

  use surveys and research to collect information on patient views and experiences

  build on evidence already collected through for example, our Patient Focus and Public Involvement work and from the NHS Complaints Procedure.

  Better Together is central to achieving our vision of an NHS with patients truly at its centre and delivering real improvements in both the quality of local health care and patients’ experience of that care.